Why are passengers forced to pay higher fares due to engineering work?

[blakey1152]

This coming Sunday I've got to go up to York, I already have an advance ticket from Kings Cross to York and was going to use my Oyster to get from Slade Green to St Pancras.

The fare using Thameslink direct is £4.50 single on Oyster which is fine but I didn't realise until yesterday that good old Thameslink don't seem to be running any trains through the core from London Bridge to St Pancras.

It seems that the only way now of getting there is to swap to the tube at an additional cost of £1.50 making the fare £6.

I even had a look at the Southeastern mixing deck that told me that if I went now it cost me £4.50 but £6 on Sunday using Oyster and even sillier amounts using a paper ticket.

To me this means that passengers are being overcharged for a journey due to engineering works!
I can't change my plans now as they've been in place since December but would I be able to claim the £1.50 back from either Thameslink or TfL?

 

[miklcct]

This is undesirable but, on PAYG, no contract is made before you travel so I don't think that you can ask for anything.

If you want to secure a price, you can buy paper tickets beforehand.

 

[Adoarable]

I doubt you’ll be able to claim back £1.50 for a ticket you haven’t purchased yet.

There are other options for getting between Slade Green and St Pancras without incurring the mixed-mode surcharge:

Option 1. Slade Green to Greenwich, DLR to Bank, London Underground to Farringdon (e.g. via Central line and Metropolitan line, changing at Liverpool Street), Thameslink to St Pancras. This takes advantage of the lack of internal gate lines at those intermediate interchanges and is entirely legitimate.

Option 2. There appears to be 1tph for most of the day running fast between London Bridge and East Croydon. You could do, for example:
10:35 Slade Green to London Bridge, arrive 11:11.
11:21 London Bridge to East Croydon, arrive 11:35.
11:50 East Croydon to St Pancras International, arrive 12:23.

Either option should be achievable within the maximum journey time of 2hr25min.

 

[blakey1152]

Thankyou Adoarable,
I had no idea that there were some potential options to avoid the surcharge of the tube!
The Journey planner mixing decks are obviously designed to make the most direct route and not any viable cheaper alternatives

Option 2 is my preferred choice simply because I'll have a case with me and faffing around with stairs and lifts on the tube is not something I would be looking forward to.

There's also a potential possibility that my Oyster may cap on bus fares by Sunday. If so the bus from London Bridge would be an option.

 

[hkstudent]

London Travelzone system is not good at handling engineering work overcharging as they always claim you are charged by how you travelled on.
This is one of the downside of simplified fare system

 

[Watershed]

This coming Sunday I've got to go up to York, I already have an advance ticket from Kings Cross to York and was going to use my Oyster to get from Slade Green to St Pancras.

The fare using Thameslink direct is £4.50 single on Oyster which is fine but I didn't realise until yesterday that good old Thameslink don't seem to be running any trains through the core from London Bridge to St Pancras.

It seems that the only way now of getting there is to swap to the tube at an additional cost of £1.50 making the fare £6.

I even had a look at the Southeastern mixing deck that told me that if I went now it cost me £4.50 but £6 on Sunday using Oyster and even sillier amounts using a paper ticket.

To me this means that passengers are being overcharged for a journey due to engineering works!
I can't change my plans now as they've been in place since December but would I be able to claim the £1.50 back from either Thameslink or TfL?

Unfortunately one of the downsides of Oyster is that Pay As You Go means literally that - you pay for the route you end up taking, regardless of the reason why that is. There are some adjustments that are made to reduce the instances of passengers being overcharged (e.g. temporary OSIs) but ultimately TfL's position is that you should pay for what you do.

Of course paper tickets are priced at a very high premium within the Zones, in an effort to encourage people to use PAYG. That falls down when only a paper ticket would have the flexibility to take another route without additional charge, for example.

 

[blakey1152]

I wanted to update everyone what happened. So by the Sunday I had indeed capped out my Oyster for bus use and thus opted to go to London Bridge and get the bus.

So armed with two suitcases, a child, partner and a dog we negotiated the exit to the bus station with the intention of catching the number 17 bus to Kings Cross.
Finally tracked down the stop which wasn't in the bus station but across the road and discovered that due to the London Half Marathon the 17 wouldn't be serving the bus station today.
No information on where it may possibly be stopping or anything - thanks TfL.

With zero possibly of getting the tube thanks to the additional bags and passengers we ended up having to take a black cab to Kings Cross via all sorts of back roads due to all the various road closures.
On the way didn't see a single 17 bus so no idea where they went.

Cost £24 in the cab and I know that Thameslink won't refund that so I'll just chalk it up to experience. Still at least it was a more relaxed way to arrive at Kings Cross!

 

[londonbridge]

This goes all the way back to when PAYG was first accepted on NR. I was travelling from East Croydon to Kings Cross Thameslink (as was), the core was closed so I went via London Bridge and Northern line, argued the same point and tried to claim the extra fare back but was refused.